Negative capability: A phenomenological study of lived experiences at the edge of certitude and incertitude

Abstract

The study examined what it was like for leaders in academia, private practice, and business organisations to be in a state of negative capability during periods of uncertainty and conflict in the workplace. ‘Negative capability’ is an expression that was coined by the English romantic poet John Keats and suggests a peculiar disposition to stay in mysteries, doubts, and uncertainty without the irritable reaching after fact and reason. Interviews were conducted using the interpretative phenom enological analysis (IPA) m ethodology. The analysis indicates that the context in which a leader is embedded does not have a significant bearing on how that individual experiences and makes sense of negative capability. The majority of participants interviewed appear to have a diminished capacity to contain uncertainty when faced with paradoxical dilemmas. In such situations, they resort to behaviours such as problem solving, consulting others, shutting down, and dispersing as a means of defending against the uncertainty. An interesting correlation seems to exist between negative capability and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This warrants future research, and is reported in the final section of the paper under ‘deviant findings.’